


The Moon

by extremesoft



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, One Shot, Pizza, Secret Relationship, hey that's an important tag don't laugh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 22:46:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15350424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extremesoft/pseuds/extremesoft
Summary: It’s something they need, a moment of not only feeling at home with each other but being able to concretize the calm and coziness of that feeling as well.





	The Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Just a bit of fluff I found in my brain while cleaning up.
> 
> (Now if I keep going like this I'll have to also write fics named "The Stars", "The Planets" and "...whatever it was", like I made Daniel think in the last fic I named after an astronomical object :D)

Despite the two living in the same house in Monaco - which they think is funny enough in itself, given their situation-, Max and Daniel are practically never able to spend any time together at _home_. They’re away for the majority of the year, skipping from location to location, airplane to airplane, hotel to Energy Station to motorhome to hotel again. And with the skipping comes the adapting; having to settle for swiftly brushing each other’s hands or arms as they walk past each other in the garage to remind each other of their affection, quick kisses and quietly whispered words in the driver’s rooms, sneaking into each other’s hotel rooms and the myriad hotel rooms merging in their memories into a mass of white sheets and carpeted floors and the smell of sanitizer. One enters, spends the night and leaves early in the morning before the risk of anyone noticing grows too great. And when they are on holiday they get even less, spending most of their time almost on the opposite sides of the globe.

They’re used to it by now. It is what it has to be. It’s not easy, not at all; there are times when the other grows tired, comes to the other and buries his head against their shoulder, saying everything there is to say with just a deep, quivering sigh. And it’s enough, and they both understand. At other times they find themselves lying side by side on one of the interchangeable hotel beds, staring at the ceiling and absent-mindedly fiddling with each other’s fingers and wondering how nice it would be to be able to be so intoxicatingly happy without having to be so exhaustingly afraid at the same time as well. It has never been like this before for either of them, everything now hanging from the thinnest of threads and one wrong move, one single misplaced word, having the power to bring both of them crashing down.

But then again it has never been like this before for either of them in so many other ways as well; and the good ways always seem to outweigh the bad in the end, after the minutes and the hours of staring at the ceiling and wondering.

Now that they’re in Monaco again, the Grand Prix obviously bringing the two there along with the rest of the engineered insanity, they get a rare chance to take a moment for themselves at home. They make plans and they joke about how cheesy and unoriginal they sound already, Max coming over to Daniel’s and the two perhaps having dinner on the balcony and then maybe eating early breakfast together the next morning and really, it’s all almost tooth-rotting and they laugh so hard at how much it sounds like a scene from a romantic comedy;

but they both know it’s something they need, a moment of not only _feeling_ at home with each other but being able to concretize the calm and coziness of that feeling as well.

So Max rings Daniel’s doorbell late in the evening of the Wednesday of the race week and Daniel opens the door about a second later, having anxiously been waiting for Max’s duties to be over for some time already. They have been past the point of dressing to impress for a good long while now and there’s no point in bothering to wear anything fancier than a t-shirt and shorts when it’s such a warm night and they’re not going anywhere, but Daniel chuckles at Max having left his cap behind to honour the occasion and Max teases Daniel for seemingly having put his better pair of colourful socks on for him.  
“Bienvenue”, says Daniel and bows exaggeratedly at the door before letting Max in.  
“Enchanté”, laughs Max before stepping further and softly kissing Daniel.

They order pizza, what else, and as the co-owner of a brewery Daniel is guaranteed to have at least three kinds of quality beers in his fridge to go with it. The food arrives relatively quickly, the local restaurants serving the _crème de la crème_ knowing better than to keep their influential customers waiting, and Max and Daniel artfully set the balcony table with two bottles of beer, two glasses of water and the pizza boxes, not bothering for such vanities as utensils either. They would place a candle in the middle of the setting if they could find one, but after turning the apartment around while giggling so hard they almost get teary-eyed they come to the conclusion that the place is completely void of candles and Daniel therefore really sucks at being romantic.

So they finally settle down and sit on both sides of the small table to face the city and the harbor spreading before them. It’s a captivating sight, one they never get to grow bored of despite having their homes right in the middle of it; the lights around them glisten and flicker, as if the city itself constantly kept winking at them, and the chains of shiny white yachts in the docks sway peacefully to the slow heartbeat of the sea. There’s a warm breeze every now and then that brings the scent of salt and the screeches of the seagulls to them and stops to ruffle Daniel’s hair before carrying on - Max’s hair has too much wax in it for getting ruffled, so the wind doesn’t bother trying. And instead of a candle they’re now lit by the moon, a wonderful white moon that tints everything below it with a pale shimmer.

For a fairly unique moment they fall comfortably and completely silent, simply enjoying the tastes and the sights and the sounds and each other, enjoying home;

and then Daniel comments on how even the pizza looks so much more magical in the moonlight and causes Max to almost choke on the bite he’s just taken.

After a good while of coughing and laughing they go quiet again, with wide smiles on their faces; but they’re not looking at the night sky anymore, stopping to stare at each other instead. Daniel marvels at the way Max’s pale skin looks almost like painted glass in the dim light, and Max gets caught and happily lost in the warmth of Daniel’s expression and his whole being, Daniel seemingly reflecting every ray and speck of light around him and tenfolding them.

“This is nice”, says Max quietly.  
“Yeah”, confirms Daniel and nods. He presents his hand to Max across the table and Max grabs it lightly, drawing circles on Daniel’s knuckles with his thumb. “We don’t get to do stuff like this too often, after all.”  
“Yep”, answers Max, squeezing the hand he’s holding. “It’s nice to be able to relax for a moment.”

The wide smiles have faltered just a tad, the overall playfulness and feeling free of care suddenly gets replaced by the same silent understanding they share when one or both of them says they’re so tired of acting and pretending, sneaking and concealing, so tired of it all. They both know that when Max says he thinks it’s _nice_ , he in reality means it’s heart-achingly _beautiful_ and something he’s hoped they would be able to do for a long time, and that he knows it’s not going to be like that for long or often but it’s what makes the moment all the more worth cherishing. There’s nothing in the world they would rather do right now, on a warm moonlit night in Monaco, than eat pizza on Daniel’s balcony.

“It’s funny, y’ know…” starts Daniel and moves his gaze to their intertwined fingers, running his thumb gently over the back of Max’s hand. He pauses for a moment to think his thoughts through once again before speaking.  
“What?” asks Max, sounding almost dreamy.  
“We joke around a lot… I mean, we do all kinds of silly-looking stuff all the time… and really, we joke around so much that if I yelled ‘I love my teammate Max Verstappen’ right now from here, as loud as I could, everyone who heard it would probably just think I’m drunk or nuts as usual and forget it straight away...”  
Max chuckles softly and nods. “Yeah.”  
“But if we did this”, Daniel continues and tugs Max’s hand a couple of times, clearly pointing to the fact that he’s still holding it, “y’ know… if we peacefully went to one of the restaurants down there and just did this…”  
“Yeah”, repeats Max and nods again, fully getting what Daniel means way before he’s reached the end of his sentiment and squeezing his hand even tighter.  
“...everyone would go totally apeshit”, finishes Daniel and slowly shakes his head.  
“Yeah”, says Max for the third time. “And it’s already bad enough as it is, people taking pictures and all that…”  
“It’s just so weird”, says Daniel and shrugs. The small frown flashing on his face doesn’t go unnoticed by Max. “Like, whose damn business is it really anyway but ours.”  
“I know”, says Max. “It’s hard.”

Daniel smiles at that, at Max’s persistent incapability of being more elaborate than that, in English at least; they both know again that when Max says it’s _hard_ , he in reality means it’s absolute bullshit and that he’s wishing he could take Daniel to one of the restaurants in the harbour - or somewhere else - so much it hurts, and take his hand and hold it and that that would be it, no unnecessary and unbidden fuss, no shocked gasps and a gazillion cameras instantly flashing around them. They know it’s not possible, not at least without letting go all too soon and turning it into another one of their hilarious and at the same time incredibly painful jokes right after, but that doesn’t stop them from thinking what it would be like, to some day be able to do that.

“We’ll get there”, says Daniel. “One day, when we’re retired and fat and no-one gives a damn about what we’re doing anymore.”  
Max’s smile is a bit more faint than he intended. “I know. Unless we become commentators or something like that, like everyone else. Then we’ll still be in the public, and not only do we have to stay fit but also we’re still not able to just do whatever we want...”

There’s so much truth in Max’s half-hearted joke it stings like a needle, and for a moment Daniel isn’t able to answer, settling for rubbing Max’s hand with his thumb again instead and slightly regretting his earlier certainty. They have of course talked this through a few times already, but it never ceases to amaze Daniel how awful it still feels, time and time again.  
“It just sucks”, he says after a while, and those three words perfectly encapsulate what they’re both thinking.  
“Yeah”, says Max and looks almost somber for a moment, lost in his thoughts; but then he looks at Daniel with a wide smile spreading across his face again.  
“This is going to sound so lame, you know-”  
“Oh, man”, says Daniel and grins.  
“-but on the other hand I do think that as long as we’re in this together, no matter what, the part that’s going to suck the most will be the staying fit part.”

Daniel lets out a loud hearty laugh. “Jeepers, okay, you were right, that was so bad.”  
“I know”, chuckles Max.  
“But you’re not wrong, though”, says Daniel after a moment and smiles warmly. “This may come as a shock for you, I get that, but I actually think I care about you more than I care about pizza and beer.”  
Max pretends to be in awe. “Maybe even more than chicken burgers?”  
Daniel laughs again. “Yeah, you’re right up there.”  
“Oh my God”, sniggers Max. “That is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”  
“Yeah, nothing gets the job done nicer than comparing your better half to a burger”, chuckles Daniel, enjoying Max’s cheerful laughter. “You’re the better half of the hamburger that is us.”  
“Shut up”, answers Max through giggling, hoping that Daniel would never shut up for too long.

They’re quiet for another moment, smiling at each other and feeling the good slowly tipping the scales and outweighing the bad again. The two hands on the table haven’t let go of each other for a second, and Daniel is still running his thumb back and forth along Max’s knuckles.  
“I do love you”, says Daniel, all earlier regret giving way to feeling more certain than ever.  
“Likewise”, answers Max, the corners of his lips sure to reach his ears any minute now as his grin grows wider and wider. He pulls Daniel’s hand closer to himself and places a small kiss on his wrist.  
“Likewise…” imitates Daniel in between laughing. “Gee, you’re absolutely horrible, and I still love you. Shut up and eat your pizza.”

They unhurriedly finish their magical-looking but by now a bit cold food and empty their bottles before slowly rising. Daniel has already prepared breakfast while waiting for Max, the two having to get up early enough the next morning without needing to try and come up with a balanced meal as well; so they just brush their teeth and go to bed and curl up next to each other, Max’s head resting against Daniel’s shoulder and Daniel slowly running his fingers over and over again through Max’s hair before falling asleep. They’re home, and that’s what they would say even if they weren’t at Daniel’s place, in Daniel’s bed, as long as they were together. The only witness to them is the bright silent moon; and the moon is sworn to secrecy.

  



End file.
